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Combinator Parsing: A Short Tutorial

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Language Engineering and Rigorous Software Development (LerNet 2008)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNPSE,volume 5520))

Abstract

There are numerous ways to implement a parser for a given syntax; using parser combinators is a powerful approach to parsing which derives much of its power and expressiveness from the type system and semantics of the host programming language. This tutorial begins with the construction of a small library of parsing combinators. This library introduces the basics of combinator parsing and, more generally, demonstrates how domain specific embedded languages are able to leverage the facilities of the host language. After having constructed our small combinator library, we investigate some shortcomings of the naïve implementation introduced in the first part, and incrementally develop an implementation without these problems. Finally we discuss some further extensions of the presented library and compare our approach with similar libraries.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Software Technology, Utrecht University, The Netherlands

    S. Doaitse Swierstra

Authors
  1. S. Doaitse Swierstra
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Chalmers University of Technology, Rännvägen 6B, 412 96, Göteborg, Sweden

    Ana Bove

  2. CCTC, Departamento de Informática, Universidade do Minho, Campus de Gualtar, 4700-320, Braga, Portugal

    Luís Soares Barbosa

  3. Facultad de Ingeniería, Instituto de Computación, Universidad de la República, Julio Herrera y Reissig 565 - Piso 5, 11300, Montevideo, Uruguay

    Alberto Pardo

  4. Departamento de Informática, Universidade do Minho, CCTC, Campus de Gualtar, 4700-320, Braga, Portugal

    Jorge Sousa Pinto

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© 2009 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Swierstra, S.D. (2009). Combinator Parsing: A Short Tutorial. In: Bove, A., Barbosa, L.S., Pardo, A., Pinto, J.S. (eds) Language Engineering and Rigorous Software Development. LerNet 2008. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 5520. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-03153-3_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-03153-3_6

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-03152-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-03153-3

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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